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history URL's no longer activate when placed in address box

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by John99

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I recently installed the latest update for Firefox and now when I select from my history (which works) the selected address will show in the address box but the browser will NOT take me to the desired page no matter what I do, click enter, green arrow, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I recently installed the latest update for Firefox and now when I select from my history (which works) the selected address will show in the address box but the browser will NOT take me to the desired page no matter what I do, click enter, green arrow, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

All Replies (6)

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Sorry, the address bar in Firefox 39 apparently is newly sensitive to corruption in the database that stores your history and bookmarks (the places.sqlite file). I suspect that is the cause of your problems.

The easiest workaround is to remove/rename the file, but then you lose all your history, so that's really not very attractive for people who rely on history for revisiting sites.

The more difficult solution is to clean the corruption out of the database, but I am not familiar with the steps for that myself and I don't want to suggest something technically complicated that I haven't tried myself.

I'm going to research this further to see whether I can come up with any usable workarounds.

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Hmm, after reading other recent threads about this problem I did not find any other solutions. If you are willing to try a few things, maybe:

(1) After entering a URL in the bar: try using Alt+Enter in the address bar to direct the URL to load in a new tab. Does that work?

(2) If you remove History and Bookmarks from the AutoComplete drop-down suggestions, does that make any difference? You can do that in the Privacy options here:

"3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options > Privacy

In the lower part of the page, uncheck History and Bookmarks. Then launch a new window (Ctrl+n) for testing. Any difference?


For sites in history, you could try using the history sidebar (Ctrl+h) search box (and set View=By Most Visited). I know this is less convenient than the address bar drop-down because you can't see the addresses without hovering over the page titles, but maybe it will help a bit.

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One other thing to try, as a variation of #1 above:

(1A) After entering a URL in the bar: try selecting it (double-click or triple-click usually will do it) and then drag and drop it on or next to the "+" button on the tab bar to launch it in a new tab. Does that work?

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There is a bug we are aware of as jscher2000 explained in the first post. We are following progress of that and it is looking like they are going to try to bring a fix out fairly soon, within days if we are lucky.

One temporary workaround that is relatively simple is to install a third party unofficial build intended for Enterprise use as an additional browser.

It will get you a secure fully functional browser, and will not interfere with your ordinary Firefox Release.


There is a method of attempting to fix the corrupt database.

A developer reports it has worked on all corrupt files tried so far. It is aimed at advanced users and IT people rather than Firefox end users so you would not be expected to be able to follow it.

The tutorial instructions assume you are familiar not only with basic click and drag mouse type operations, but would be willing to try using a command terminal. (Only a handful of simple commands are needed a lot will just copy and paste)

We are supposed to be experimenting with screen sharing on the forum which would let someone help you but AFAIK only Admins can do that at present. If you want to give that a try I could also try to see if an Admin is willing to help you, but it often takes a few days just to get attention from Admin staff.

In case it helps I will give you link to the tutorial on this method. I can post in these threads to help you understand and follow the tutorial. So if you are feeling brave and adventurous, or just plain desperate to get this fixed have a look at

I have added an escalate tag to this post, that should draw this to the attention of professional Admin staff from helpdesk.

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Actually its those part of the group, I cannot do a screenshare atm.

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Thanks Rachel. Doesn't look like the OP is still around. Mark Schmidt was suggesting this is something we could use the screenshare for and although no one seems to be updating the contributors on use of the screenshare feature I assumed HelpDesk would be using it already.